In order to make a high-quality low-fiber animal feed from corn, it is known to chop the ears of corn up and use them either directly as silage or directly as feed for livestock. In particular such fodder has been found ideally suited in the raising of pigs.
To produce a good quality product it is necessary to eliminate not only the cornstalks from the fodder but also the corn husks. Thus a good so-called corn-cob mix contains only pieces of corn cob and corn kernels.
The necessary threshing or chopping operation and separation of the corn husks is normally carried out by a device which is completely separate from the harvester. This device typically merely chops the entire ears of corn up into small pieces, and then it uses a blower to separate the chaff-like corn husks from the denser cob pieces and kernels. Such an arrangement has the considerable disadvantage that frequently a good deal of usable fodder is blown away with the corn husks. It is possible to adjust the force of the blower down to prevent such blowing-away, but this normally leads to the inclusion of an excessive quantity of the fibrous corn husks in the mixture.